Most personal computers (herein Rafter abbreviated as “PC”) of recent years have standard client software installed during the manufacturing stage or when an operating system (OS) is installed. Examples of client software are Explorer and Microsoft Internet Explorer (registered trademarks) provided with the Windows (registered trademark) platform.
Through this standard client software, the user of the PC can read files from and write files to a server device, acquire filenames or folder names from the server, or execute other operations without having to install separate software.
This client software includes a function for displaying a window showing filenames and icons representing the files, folder names for folders storing files and icons representing the folders, a tree showing the hierarchical structure of the folders, and the like as a user-friendly way of presenting file and folder data to the user.
Japanese patent application publication No. 2006-227908A discloses a technology involving the installation of an application (direct printing program) on a PC through which application the user can instruct a printer to print a PDF (Portable Document Format) file. The PC user can also receive a report through this application indicating whether the printing operation was a success or a failure.
However, with the conventional technology described above, the user cannot issue a command to print a PDF file or receive a printing report at the PC without installing a prescribed application (the direct printing program).